Category Archives: Blogs

THE SEMESTER IS ALMOST OVER? (CONCLUSION POST)

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We did it. We did it, everyone. We made it to the end of the semester and this will be the last blog post for the course. Applaud yourselves on the back for all the readings you have done, blog posts you wrote, as well as all of the discussions you went through. Most importantly, a huge applause to the TAs and our professor for the course, Dr. Jon Beasley-Murray. I’m surprised how quick the semester flew by and that I somehow managed to get myself writing a weekly blog post and commenting on classmates’ posts. I signed up for this course as part of my literature requirement, but I had initially thought this course was all about reading romantic books originating from different languages, but it turns out, it is much more.

 

Now, reflecting back to all the readings we have done throughout the semester, I noticed common remerging themes. Aside from the discussions of books being gendered, characters having asshole husbands or boyfriends, sexism, politics (including war), and coming of age, were the most prominent recurring themes with all the books we have read. I liked how we explore books from a range of centuries and read the translations from various languages. In addition, we read books with varying levels of difficulty, which I believe encourages us to think about and engage with the material, even if we did not particularly indulge with the book itself. For example, The Hour of the Star by Lispector, was a more challenging book to read because of the confusion between narrators and characters, but also it being a challenge makes you want to understand why it was difficult or confusing? However, this is not to say that the books where it was more tedious to follow, for example, Combray, were enjoyable. In fact, I did not really enjoy reading it because quite frankly, the style was just not my cup of tea.

 

The range of books we have read in the class also had authors not just from varying cultural backgrounds and eras, but also distinctive styles of writing. I found how the style of writing can also be metaphorical in the way it can be connected to the storytelling. For example, Death without Interruptions, had many long sentences without a period in sight. When you think deeply about what a period does, you can also think about how the function of a period indicates the end of the sentence, and think through how that could be representative of the citizens being immortal in the book.

 

Overall, this course has really allowed me to see the varying styles of writing, interpretations, as well as how we can collectively think about the translations in writing. I am proud that I have made it through completing the contract (after some revisions and breaking it one time, but this was way before the deadline to revise the contract). I think that with this course and semester coming to an end, I can only think more about selecting more books that are outside of my preferred genres of non-fictions or simple romantic fiction. This course has been well organized and it has been overall fun to write blog posts. I truly enjoyed hearing some of the engaging discussions along with reading some of the posts because quite frankly, some of you had the most creative, honest, and humorous titles.

Combray by Proust – attachment style

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Impressions

My first impression upon reading Combray was that it is one perplexing piece of literature, especially given that it is the first one we are reading. Not only was I met with a spiral of confusion, but also I would feel lost with the more pages I frantically read, although there were some parts that made sense when I reread it. The expression of the text is not a conventional style of writing or at least a style I have previously seen. For example on page 8, there was plenty of detail in writing, but sentences felt like they were eternally descriptive and verbose. This was not the case throughout the texts, but was head scratching to try and understand all at once.

 

Aside from my initial impressions of the readings, I had interestingly thought about the narrator’s Mama and their relationship growing up. As someone who is from a psychology background and has taken some family studies courses for my minor, I’d thought to myself what kind of attachment style would best describe their relationship? There were drops of hints throughout the first section of the literature where I had sensed the bond between the mother and the narrator leaning towards being secured. One example is that the narrator describes that mama is the one who would say goodnight to them (page 29). Other examples such as mama being the one to read books aloud to him or when Francoise sees that mama is holding his hand while he’s crying, yet seem to remain a tranquil composure as mama seems to provide comfort through being present (page 38). Mama also demonstrated as being a protective figure and somewhat stoic to possibly shield her genuine emotions, as she holds back herself from crying when seeing the narrator cry. All of these examples and the general responsiveness of mama indicate that there is likely a secure attachment style between the two.

Overall thought

Despite the reading for this week being complex, I look forward to seeing what other readings have in store. If I had not frantically tried speed reading in an attempt to get the reading over with, I’d think I would find myself indulging more of this sort of reading and being able to be more meticulous with my analysis. I will say that it’s very compelling and to such an extent helpful to see if you can relate or connect the literature to other things that pertain to you such as your own experience, in order to be better perceptive to what you’re reading.

 

Question:

Not necessarily related to the reading itself, but how did everyone here find themselves taking a note of what was going on? Were you just as lost as me?